I'm new to road cycling. I've owned bikes in the past and they were for short rides and fun in the parks. Other than one in Germany that I used for transportation back and forth to work, bikes have always just been for fun.

As my wife was training for a couple of triathlons she asked if I would do one with her. I declined gracfully as I had been in the Army for 20 years and after running 3 to 5 miles a day 5 days a week I hate running. I'm a lousy swimmer so triathlons aren't for me. I wanted to ride with her and figured that I wouldn't be able to keep up with her for long on my old mountain bike so I bought myself a Mercier Galaxy steel framed road bike. I went with a steel frame because of my size (6'4" and 240 then down to 225 1 month later).

My first week I logged about 30 miles on the bike paths and was hooked. The 2nd week I logged about 75 miles and on a day off I decided to ride to work and return. For the last 2 weeks I have been riding to work 2 out of my 4 days and logged about 150 miles per week with work being a 27.6 mile round trip daily and all of that except about 2 miles is by bike path.

Part of the deal with me getting a new bike was that I had to enter some sort of biking event. Since I don't care about racing I've decided to enter 3 events this year. If I'm gonna do it I'm gonna do it big. One is a 32 miler, the next is a 62 miler and I hope to be able to do the Moab Century by the end of the summer. I'm riding the 32 mile course this weekend.